Grain-elevator.



J. J. SHOTWELL.

GRAIN ELEVATOR.

APPLICATION man NOV. 7. 191a.

Patented Oct. 9, 1917.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1 INVEN'POR JJ fimmcn WITNESSES A Itorncvs 1.]. SHOTWELL.

GRAIN ELEVATOR.

APPLICATION FILED Nov. 7, 1-916.

Patented Oct. 9,1917.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2 'INVENTOR 6.1M

7 If I I l/lilll/l/"lllil/f/ l/// WITNESSES UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

J'OHN J'. SHOT'WELL, F WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA.

GRAIN-ELEVATOR.

1,242,482. v Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Oct, 9, 1917, Application filed November 7, 1916. Serial No. 130,046.

To all whom it may concern: tact making appliance, the section being Be it known that 1, JOHN J. SHOTWELL, taken in the plane at right angles to that of the city of Winnipeg, in the Province of shown in Fig. 3.

Manitoba, Canada, have invented certain Fig. represents diagrammatically the 5 new and useful Improvements in Grainelectrical circuit.

Elevators, of which the following is the In the drawings like characters of referspecification. encc indicate corresponding parts in the sev- The invention relates to improvements in oral figures. grain elevators and particularly to an at- 1 represents the working floor of an eletachment to the distributing spout commonly vator and- 2 the top floor. called the gerber spout and the object of the 3 represents the ordinary elevator leg invention is to provide a device associated which passes upwardly through the top floor with the gerber spout which will primarily and terminates in the hood 4 which is proeifect the positive registration of the gerber vided with the customary discharge funnel spout with the various floor funnels asso- 5 to which is attached the usual shiftable ciated therewith and which will also posidischarge or gerber spout 6 which is adapted tively indicate to the attendant on the workto swing so that it can be brought to posiing floor of the elevator the precise funnel tions such that it will discharge into any into which the gerber spout is discharging, one of the concentrically arranged floor funsuch device obviating any possibility of the nels 7 which, in actual practice, communicate grain being discharged into an improper bin with the respective bins of the elevator. or of grain in adjoining bins being mixed While this gerber spout can be suspended as very often occurs under. present condiand manipulated in any of the well known tions. Ways, I have considered it advisable for the With the above objects in view the invenpurpose of the present specification to show tion consists essentially in combining with one of the ordinary suspensions which comthe customary shiftable gerber spout and prises the following parts 1- bin funnels, contact making appliances con- 8 represents an upright tubular shaft havtained in a suitable electric circuit embodying the lower end rotatably mounted in a 30 ing a source of electro-motive force, and an carrying bearing block 9 carried by the floor indicator or annunciator and associating 2, this bearing being arranged such that the with the contact making appliance a means vertical axis of the shaft lies on'the common for guiding the gerber spout positively to center of the concentrically arranged floor the proper discharging position over any funnels 7. The upper end of the shaft is 85 selected funne the parts being arranged fastened to the gerber spout as indicated at and constructed as hereinafter more par- 10 and itis obvious with this arrangement ticularly described and later pointed out in that the shaft actually supports the gerber the appended claims, reference being had to spout from the floor. the accompanying drawings in which An arm 11 is attached to the shaft and 40 Figure 1 represents a side view of the has the outer end spanning the body of the device as it appears installed. gerber spout. The outer end of the arm is Fig. 2 represents a horizontal sectional reinforced by a stay bar 12. 13 is a lifting view through the leg and 'gerber spout and lever pivotally secured to the arm 11 at 14. looking downwardly, the section being taken The lower end of the lifting lever carries 45 in the plane denoted by the line X-X a roller 15 which operates on the lower side Fig. 1. of the gerber spout and the upper end is Fig. 3 represents an enlarged detailed ver-' connected to a cable 16 which passes downtical sectional view through the adjustable wardly through the shaft to the working? portion of the contact making appliance. floor where it is attached to a foot pedal 17 50 Fig. 4: represents a vertical sectional view -I have not gone into details regarding through the adjustable portion of the conthe above parts as they are well known to those familiar with the art and for this reason a fuller description is considered unnecessary.

In practice, one, by pressing down the foot pedal, swings the lever to raise the free end of the s out up such that it will clear the funnels In order that the gerber spout can be turned from the working floor a hand wheel 18 isprovided in any suitable location on the working floor and associated with the hand wheel is a drum 19 to which an endless .cable 20 is fastened, the cable passing up wardly through the top floor, around the guide pulley 21 and around. the operating pulley 22 fixed to the shaft 8.

The hand wheel is supplied with a pointer 23 which is adapted in the turning of the wheel to point to numbers appearing on an adjacent board, the numbers actually indicating bins.

In the drawing I have shown the numbers 1 to 8 inclusive arranged around the indicator wheel and in this connection it is to be understood that when the hand wheel is turned to bring the pointer to any one of these numbers the gerber spout is in position over the floor funnel corresponding to that number.

The above means for raising the spout and for turningit to the various funnels are, as already stated, pow in use and my invention has nothing whatever to do with these particular arrangements. They are simply shown in order that the working of my invention, shortly disclosed, can be .better understood.

I wish here, however, to mention that owing to slackness occurring in the cable 20 there is always the possibility under ordinary conditions of the gerber spout not being properly positioned over the proper floor funnel even when the pointer indicates that the gerber spout is. positioned directly over a certain funnel.

This fact very often causes trouble due to the mixing of the grain in adjacent bins. My invention avoids this difiiculty as will be later apparent.

Adjoining each of the floor funnels 7 I locate a contact member 2i and to the gerber spout I attach a further contact member 25, these being arranged such that when they are brought together an electric circuit containing an annunciator will be closed. The contact member 24 in each instance is constructed in detail as now described.

26 represents a pipe of suitable length passed through the top floor 2 and held in adjustable relation to the floor by means of adjusting screws 27 carried by the flange 28 permanently fastened to the floor and re-" ceiving the pipe slidably. The upper end of the pipe is constructed to provide two outwardly flaring opposing guide bars 29 and 30, the object of which will be parent.

Within the tube I fit a contact piece 31 which is suitably insulated from the tube by means of a porcelain or such like insulator 32.

The contact piece is supplied with a jam nut 33 and a feed Wire 34: leads from the contact piece to one of the terminals of an electrical indicator or annunciator 35.

The contact member 25 is constructed from a metallic arm 36 fastened permanently to the free end of the gerber spout and extending in a direction radial t0 the shaft 8. The latter member is preferably insulated from the spout.

To the contact member 36 I attach a return wire 37 which leads to the upper portion of the spout and then passes downwardly through the elevator and connects with the other of the terminals of the annunciator.

A battery 38 or other suitable source of electro-motive force is inserted in the circuit so formed.

I wish now to call attention particularly to Fig. 5 where the electrical connections for eight funnels are shown diagrammatically. In observing this figure and keeping in mind the particular arrangement of the gerber spout and contact members it will be readily seen that when the gerber spout is brought to a position over one of the funnels and dropped down the arm 86 will engage with the contact piece 31 and close the circuit through the annunciator with the result that the dial or whatever other indicating means is employed in the annunciator Will show on the ground floor that the gerber spout is in proper discharging position relative to the bin, which, it will be understood, corresponds to-the number presented on the annunciator.

In this way the attendant can be positive at all times by looking at his annunciator that the gerber spout is discharging into a definite bin and does not have to rely on the customary pointer 23 as is the ordinary practice.

A further feature in connection with my invention is that owing to the fact that each contact member 24 presents a pair of outflaring guide arms 29 and 30 the gerber spout is always brought by the guide arms to a proper discharging position over the funnel as it will be obvious that when the gerber spout is dropped either to one side or the other of the center of the funnel the arm 36 thereof will be caught by one or other of the guide arms which will direct it to the proper central position, not only for discharging but also for closing the circuit containing the annunciator.

In connection with the above description I wish it to be distinctly understood that the shortly apprecise construction of the contact members is of little importance as this could be modified readily without in the least departing from the spirit of the invention which resides principallyin making a contact to close an electric circuit containing an annunciator each time the gerber spout is dropped to discharge into one or other of the funnels and in providing means for guiding the gerber spout positively to the discharging position.

What I claim as my invention is z- 1. The combination with a plurality of concentrically arranged and spaced floor funnels, a pivoted distributing spout for delivering to the funnels and means for operating the spout to bring it into discharging position over one or other of the funnels, of an annunciator embodying indicators corresponding to the respective funnels, a contact member associated with each funnel, a contact member associated with the distributing spout and an electrical circuit containing a source of electro-motive force, the annunciator and the contact members and arran ed such that it will be closed by the contact ng of the contact members in the dischargmg position of the. distributing spout over a funnel.

2. The combination with a plurality of concentrically arranged and spaced floor funnels, a pivoted distributing spout for delivering to the funnels and means for operating the spout to bring it into discharging position over one or other of the funnels, of an annunciator havin a selective indicator corresponding to eac funnel, a contact member adjacent each funnel, a contact member carried by the distributing spout and adapted to engagle'with the funnel cone tact members when t e distributing spout is brought to discharging position over the respective funnels and an electrical circuit embodying a source of electro-motive force, the annunciator and the contact members and arranged such that when the distributing spout is positioned to discharge intoa definite funnel the indicator corresponding to that funnel will be actuated.

3. The combination with a plurality of concentrically arranged and spaced floor funnels, a pivoted distributing spout for delivering to the funnels and means for operating the spout to bring it into discharging position over one or other of the funnels, of an annunciator having a selective indicator for each of the funnels, a suitably insulated contact piece adjoining each funnel, a suitably insulated contact. arm extending radially from the distributing spout and adapted in the discharging position of the spout over a funnel to make contact with the contact member of that funnel and an electrical circuit containing the contact members, the contact arm, the annunciator and a source of electro-motive force, said circuit being arranged such that a particular indicator of the annunciator will be actuated when the distributing spout is in dischargingposition over a particular funnel.

4. The combination with a plurality of concentrically arranged spaced funnels, a

- pivoted distributing spout for discharging into the several funnels and means for raising, swinging and dropping the distributing spout to bring it into the several discharging positions, of vertically adjustable means for positively guiding the distributing spout into discharging position over the funnel when dropped.

5. The combination with a plurality of concentrically arranged spaced funnels a pivoted distributing spout for dischargmg into the several funnels and means for raising, swinging and dropping the distributing spout to bring it into the several discharging positions, of an outstanding guide arm ermanently secured to the discharge end 0 the spout and vertically adjustable flarin guide bars adjacent the respective funne s and adapted to receive the extending end of the arm in the dropping of the spout and direct the spout into a positive discharging position centered over the funnel.

Signed at Winnipeg, this 15th day of September, 1916.

' J OHN J SHOTWELL. In the presence of- ROLAND Focus. 

